OTTAWA: The Canada-US border will remain closed to discretionary, non-essential travel until August 21, according to government officials. The 30-day bilateral agreement has now been extended three times and is set to expire on July 21.
At his regular press conference, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday that:
“We recognize that the situation continues to be complex in the United States in regards to Covid-19.”
Every month we have been able to extend the border closures to all but essential goods and services, and those discussions are ongoing with the United States right now as we are a week from the next deadline for closures. We’re going to continue to work hard to keep Canadians safe and to keep our economies flowing and we will have more to say later this week, I’m sure.”
The current agreement on the border exempts the flow of trade and commerce, as well as temporary foreign workers and essential health-care workers such as nurses who live and work on opposite sides of the border. All casual tourism and cross-border visits remain prohibited. Several northern US states have been pressing for the reopening of the border to allow normal traffic to resume.
A letter to Canada’s Public Safety Minister Bill Blair was also published on US Congressman Brian Higgin’s website, signed by 29 bipartisan members of Congress urging Ottawa and Washington to create a framework for a ‘phased reopening of the border, based on objective metrics and accounting for the varied circumstances across border regions,” as well as to ease current measures.
However, Trudeau explained: “We’ve pledged to continue to monitor closely the situation that is constantly evolving. We will be discussing with our American partners what the next steps should be, and I think this is a situation that is evolving rapidly and we need to keep responding to the situation on the ground.”
Trudeau added that talks were “ongoing,” and vowed to “continue to work hard to keep Canadians safe and to keep our economies flowing.” Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland also told CTVNews.ca in a statement that the health and safety of Canadians remains the “absolutely priority.”
The latest Nano polling suggests that more than 80 per cent of Canadians favour keeping the border restrictions in place. Some public health officials have also suggested the border should remain closed until at least the end of the year because the COVID-19 pandemic is still out of control in the United States.